


Sympathy for the Devil

by DaggerStar



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Deal with a Devil, Emotional Manipulation, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 07:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18139289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaggerStar/pseuds/DaggerStar
Summary: Alternatively titled 'Worst Case Scenario'. Something I imagine could happen between a terrible fallen god and my neutral evil tiefling.





	Sympathy for the Devil

   Dying is not peaceful. Aryn could feel every inch deeper that shortsword had sunk into her stomach, right between her leather armour. The bandit stabbing her had grinned like a madman as her gold-speckled red blood soaked his blade. After the blade was pulled out, Aryn screamed in pain, startling her teammates in the middle of combat. The other three's heads darted over to look at their fatally wounded comrade. The bandit unsheathed his blade from the young tiefling's body in the same moment as he muttered something and plunged his free hand into the wound. The rest of the party could see as deep green poison spread rapidly throughout Aryn's veins. In that moment, Aryn didn't even know what was happening. This excruciating pain erupted within her. She could focus on nothing else as she fell to the ground below the bandit. Blood poured from Aryn's mouth. No words were able to make their way out of the choking. As the bandit stared down as her, stopping in the middle of battle to watch her die, Aryn managed to roll over. She coughed up blood violently, just enough to whisper out a final prayer from a dying woman. It'd been almost a decade since last she prayed, since the gods abandoned her. But in her final moment, iron tang in her mouth, Aryn begged to the only god she could see taking sympathy on an asshole like her.

 

“Sybilla… spare me…”

 

   The last thing Aryn heard was one of her party mates screaming her name then, in a flash of pure agony, darkness.

 

   An icy embrace.

 

   Aryn felt breath enter her and she startled upward into a sitting position, shooting her head around. Below her form was fine sand, and to her left was a calm ocean. With a furrowed brow, she noticed the red hue present turning the sands into rubies and the water into amethyst. When she looked up, she saw the source of the crimson tone. A blood moon. Aryn's face went cold. She stood, gingerly pressing her left hand onto where her poisoned gash should be, but was greeted with no pain. It was then that she realised all she was wearing was a black cloak, seemingly made of shadows. Taken aback by her current state, it took her a moment to notice the silvery figure laying on the sand some way up the beach. It was the only thing in this realm not blanketed by red. Aryn carefully made her way towards the figure. She reached down to check the body and it was then that she realised that not a single bit of sound could be heard throughout the area. In this moment of silence, Aryn couldn't even hear her own bated breath. Suddenly, the figure grabbed Aryn’s arm. It looked up and Aryn could finally see it. Her. The woman's hair looked like a sunset, with silver glittering stars near the bottom. Her skin was light grey, and Aryn could see finned ears and gils faintly poking out. Even as someone not well-versed in religion, Aryn knew this woman. God of the moon and tides, mother of merfolk, protector of tricksters and thieves, Sybilla. Sybilla gasped at Aryn, desperately. The sight of such a powerful being looking so deeply drained set off every alarm bell in Aryn's head. She yanked out of the god's grasp and began backing up, but bumped into something. Aryn yelped and quickly turned on her heels to face what she just felt.

 

   Looming over her was a gaunt, red, androgynous form with black horns curling outward then in again, and a barbed tail ending in a spade. They were completely naked, and Aryn could see their sharp bones and spidery limbs. Their eyes were almost completely black, except for a glowing red pupil. A large, sharp-toothed grin spread across their face. Whatever words that might've been held in Aryn's mouth were lost at the sight of this figure. She knew exactly who this was. One of the many forms of the fallen god that haunts every tiefling who wants nothing to do with the source of their creation. A beast of corruption and evil; an eldritch fiend of the unspeakable horrors that pillage the world. Standing over Aryn in that moment was Nyx. As Nyx kept grinning, Aryn attempted to step back, but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. Nyx's grip was gentle, almost kind if Aryn didn't know any better. Aryn felt a rumbling invade her mind as Nyx finally begun to speak.

 

“Aryn Redrii. It's very nice to meet you. I'd introduce myself, but surely I'm infamous enough?”

 

   Their voice was haunting and, combined with the rumbling darkness that Aryn now felt in her bones, deep in tone. Aryn shook violently with the kind of fear she hadn't felt in the seven years since her parents’ deaths. Everything in Aryn was begging her to run away, but she ignored her fight-or-flight.

 

“I would like you to walk with me, my daughter.”

 

“Don't call me that.”

 

   The words escaped Aryn before she could stop them. Her heart pounded against her chest as she stared at Nyx, who now had their head slightly cocked to one side. What had devolved into a slight smile grew into a hungry smirk. Nyx turned and started walking down the beach. Aryn turned back toward the decrepit body of Sybilla, who reached out to her once more.

 

“Pay her no mind. Her lifeforce is dimming.”

 

   A silver tear ran down Sybilla's cheek, but Aryn tore her vision away from the god. With that final steeling of the nerves, Aryn followed Nyx down the ruby beach. For a beat, they simply walked in tense silence, until Nyx finally cut through the silence.

 

“I heard your prayer,” they explained, “And who was I to ignore the dying pleas of a tiefling like you?”

 

“Like… me?” Aryn breathed out with furrowed brows.

 

“While you don't maintain the more chaotic aspect of me, you maintain the ruthlessness. The thievery, the deception, the murder. I'm very proud.”

 

   Those words rung through Aryn's head and she looked down at her clawed hands. This wasn't the first time someone described her as ruthless, or even likened her to Nyx's image, though the latter was typically done in a hateful way. Not in a… a proud way. Aryn attempted to steady her breathing and clasped her shaking hands together. In this moment of peaceful walking, she could almost see the entity that Nyx surely was before the corrupted ideas of wanton destruction entered their mind. Before their mother, Sybilla, bound them to her in her realm.

 

“How did,” Aryn thought for a moment, “What happened to Sybilla?”

 

“I happened,” they stated with a smile.

 

   Aryn stopped walking and instead stared at Nyx’s pallid figure. Nyx also stopped. They turned around to stare at the ethereal ocean before the two of them, likely expecting the question Aryn was about to ask.

 

“Why am I here?”

 

With a chuckle Nyx replied, “One of life's greatest mysteries.” They sighed. “I brought you here because I'd like to strike a deal.”

 

“What sort of deal?” Aryn asked as she moved to join them.

 

“You desire something very similar to one of the things I desire.”

 

   Aryn squinted up at them for a moment before it clicked into place. The young rogue looked back in the direction of Sybilla's weakening form with a deep recognition.

 

“Revenge.”

 

“Your want for revenge has sculpted you into quite the fearsome woman, Aryn. You no longer blink twice at death, especially when you cause it. You have your goal and you are sticking to it. It's admirable, and a life I can relate to.”

 

“I'm not a vessel of chaos. I'm in it for my parents and, after that, myself.”

 

“I know this. I didn't call you here to twist your arm. And know that I'll gift you resurrection no matter what you choose here. But as a fellow agent of revenge, I'd like you to hear me out.”

 

   Nyx looked down and smiled at Aryn and, for a moment, their red skin and black hair reminded her of the Redrii lineage. With a sharp inhale and shaky hands, Aryn turned her body towards the god and spoke.

 

“What do you propose?”

 

“A trade. Your newfound friends’ lives for the chance to finally torture and murder both the man who killed your parents, and the noble who ordered the hit.”

 

   Aryn lost her breath. That was it, that was all Aryn had wanted from her life. Nyx was there offering Aryn everything and the only thing. No god of the realms had ever smiled upon Aryn like this. No miracles, no happiness. It didn’t matter who Nyx was or the awfulness they embodied. In that moment on the beach, looking off into the bloodied waves with tears threatening to overflow, Aryn grinned.

 

“That’s all?”

 

“I’m happy you are so eager,” Nyx said as they put their spindly arm around around Aryn. “It will be a touch more complicated than just killing your group all by yourself, and you will have my assistance. Bring the other three to my true temple and fool them into giving blood. The followers of the temple will recognise your face and wait until it’s time for the others to be killed. You will be my hand and my followers will hold them down. Cut swiftly like I know you can.”

 

“I’ll do whatever it takes, I can promise you that. Anything to feel the mercenary’s neck beneath my hands, and blood of the noble on my skin.”

 

   Nyx led Aryn back to where she’d woken up, walking past Sybilla’s crying body. She called out Aryn’s name, and Aryn only glanced at one of the gods who forsook her those seven years ago. Who needed holy gods when you could have a being like Nyx at your side? Of course Aryn knew what working for such an abomination entailed. Nyx could cross her at any time, it would certainly be their  _ modus operandi _ , but something about their demeanor and brazenness made Aryn assume otherwise. Sure, Nyx is infamous for being a piece of shit, but they had a goal that they shared with her. The two fiends shared an uncanny ache for bloody revenge and they’d clearly go to any lengths to achieve it. Aryn almost felt a scary sense of comfort in this. In being able to let out this side of her with someone. The connotations of that someone being Nyx, god of indiscriminate ultraviolence, was not lost on Aryn. But the promise of what she’d been searching for through her teenage and young adult years was the perfect apple to tempt her with. When the two of them got back to the area Aryn had woken up at, Nyx turned to her with two hands on each of her shoulder and a soft smile.

 

“Go forth and be my beautiful executioner.”

 

   Nyx leaned down and kissed Aryn on the forehead and for just that one touch, Aryn remembered what this feeling was. 

 

   A lurching motion shocked Aryn’s body, then, a cacophony of noise. There were voices around her, and the sounds of nature. Her body stung terribly where she had been stabbed. Gasps of surprise echoed out as Aryn turned around and began coughing. Deep red, fiend-flecked blood splattered from her dry throat and she took heavy, broken breaths. Aryn felt arms around her and saw El’s long black hair slightly obscure her vision. Deja and Nina looked as though they were about to cry as El surely also appeared. El helped his fellow rogue into a standing position and Deja began healing Aryn’s heavy wound.

 

“You were dead, what the fuck happened?” Nina asked sternly.

 

   Aryn took her wineskin out and took a considerable drink, then felt the space on her forehead between her horns where Nyx had kissed her awake. She looked to her teammates with a smile on her face.

 

“I prayed and the gods listened.”

**Author's Note:**

> The devil isn't Nyx.


End file.
